Pages

July 20, 2007

Pharyngula Lays Smackdown on Critics

Now that it is in the dictionary, "smackdown" is clearly the post appropriate word to describe a recent Pharyngula post by PZ Myers. PZ is at his best when he's fired up about something, and that is certainly the case here. If I had some sort of hall of fame for my favorite posts of all time, PZ's would belong.

Of course, PZ is absolutely right to describe a map claiming to show the density of religious believers in the United States in the following way:

It shows the concentration of ignorant, deluded, wicked, foolish, or oppressed victims of obsolete mythologies in the United States, with the lighter colors being the most enlightened and the dark reds being the most repressed and misinformed.

Not surprisingly, his remark was greeted with outrage. After all, his blog is widely read and not just by atheists. Never mind that he was right - some found his words offensive. He did a great job of responding to critics, but he's right that the heart of the response can be distilled to one simply sentence: "I said it because it was true."